


A Little Rain

by Minim Calibre (minim_calibre)



Category: Gifted (2017)
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, Family Issues, Grief/Mourning, Mother-Son Relationship, Parenthood, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 09:31:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13051269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minim_calibre/pseuds/Minim%20Calibre
Summary: Frank Adler learned of his stepfather's death on an ordinary Tuesday morning in mid-July.





	A Little Rain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tommygirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tommygirl/gifts).



Frank Adler learned of his stepfather's death on an ordinary Tuesday morning in mid-July. He was at the marina, trying to finish some repairs for one of his regular clients before the expected thunderstorm rolled in. Mary was with him, perched on a patio chair with her nose in a book, so when his phone started ringing, he ignored it. By quarter to noon, he was done for the day—just in time, from the smell of the air. He sent Mary to wait in the truck, grabbed his phone off the workbench, and locked everything up.

Out of habit, he glanced at the phone to see who had called. A number he didn't recognize, a message on his voicemail left at 10:23. A Boston area code, which didn't bode well. It wasn't Evelyn's phone number, but she was the only person in Boston who would be calling him. If she wanted something—

He pressed play anyway.

"Frank, this is Evelyn." His mother's voice on the recording was unsteady and he felt himself start to tense up. "Walter had a stroke last night. He passed away this morning, about half an hour ago. I thought you would want to know."

He was still processing the news when Mary stuck her head out the passenger side window, hair wild around her face. She was overdue for a haircut. For that matter, so was he. "Frank, hurry up! You said we'd go to the library on the way home!"

"Hold your horses," he told her. He looked back down at his phone. "The library's not going anywhere."

"But you said you wanted to get there before it started raining—"

"And it's about to start raining," he finished for her. He shoved the phone in his pocket. "All right, all right, I'm coming."

Evelyn would have to wait, at least until after the library. And until after he could make arrangements for Mary, because he sure as hell wasn't making this call with her around. He opened the driver's side door and got in. "All buckled?" he asked, putting the key in the ignition.

"Yep."

He started the engine and threw the truck into reverse, pulling out of the parking spot. "You know they're not likely to have what you're looking for, right?"

"I know. Frank?"

"Mary?"

"If they don't, we can go to the bookstore, right?"

"Yes, we can go to the bookstore. I told you that at breakfast. Just remember your budget for the month is ten dollars." Despite what he'd said at the time, he wasn't going to take the pack of gum she'd thrown into the grocery cart out of her measly allowance.

Mary gave an exaggerated sigh. "I _know._ Can I turn on the radio?"

"Yes, you can turn on the radio."

"You should fix the CD player," she said, tuning the radio from station to station as she tried to find something she wanted to listen to for longer than thirty seconds.

"It doesn't have a CD player, it has a cassette player and it's not broken."

"Do we have any cassettes?"

"No."

"Then you should get a CD player."

"I'll think about it." He'd been meaning to put one in for almost as long as he'd owned the truck. It just hadn't ever been enough of a priority for him to actually do it. "It's more likely than me getting you a piano."

That made her laugh for some reason, a lilting giggle that always reminded him of Diane as a child.

The last time he'd seen Walter Price had been Christmas Day, eight and a half years ago, and they'd both spent it trying to keep the peace between Evelyn and Diane. His sister had been moody and touchy, even for her. She'd have known she was pregnant by then, even though she hadn't told him—or Evelyn—for another month.

The thunder rolled in, ushering in the afternoon with a bang. The rain followed shortly on its heels, splattering hard against the windscreen as they pulled into the library parking lot.

"I told you to hurry up," said Mary, unbuckling her seat belt and glowering at the weather.

"So you did," Frank replied. "Come on, let's get inside before we get soaked."

~

For once, their library destination was the children's section, not math or science. Mary was in search of the fourth book in a series about warrior cats that, as she had explained when she'd asked for an advance on her allowance for the second and third, "I didn't think I'd like them, but Isabella got me hooked." The library website didn't show any copies available, but she'd insisted on checking to see for herself.

While she looked through the stacks, he ducked out to call Roberta, though not before telling Mary he'd be right back.

She picked up on the third ring. "Afternoon, Frank," she said.

"Roberta, are you doing anything this afternoon?"

"Laundry," she replied. There was a brief pause. "What's wrong?"

"Did I say anything was wrong?"

"I know your voice, Frank." Even through the phone, it felt like she was giving him a dirty look.

"Can you watch Mary for a bit in about forty-five minutes? I need to call Evelyn when I get home."

"Evelyn?" Her voice was incredulous. "Why would you need to call Evelyn?"

"My stepfather passed away this morning," he told her. "She left me a message while I was working. We're at the library now."

"Sure, Frank," she said gently. "I can have Mary over."

"Thanks, Roberta." He hung up the phone and took a moment just to breathe. One thing down, the worst of it still to come. He headed back inside.

"It's still checked out," Mary said when she saw him, though she had a small stack of books in her arms. "But they had books five and six."

"Looks like the library website was right after all."

She shrugged. "It could have been wrong. Sometimes it's wrong. Can we go to the bookstore now?"

"Not quite yet. You get to go over to Roberta's for a while first."

Mary eyed him suspiciously. "Are you having Miss Stevenson over again? It's not Friday."

The tentative thing they'd had before Mary had gone to the Larsen's had started up again in the months after Mary had come home. It hadn't been tentative for a while now, but Mary still insisted on calling her Miss Stevenson. "She's not your teacher anymore, you know. She hasn't been since the end of May. You can call her Bonnie. And no. I just have to take care of something, so you and Roberta get to hang out."

"Okay," she said. "But we're still going to the bookstore."

He took the books from her and they went to check out. "We'll go after I'm done. I'll even increase your budget by five dollars. Consider it an early birthday present instead of an advance."

~

Mary dropped the library books on the bed next to a sleeping Fred as soon as they got home. She rooted around in the stack of DVDs next to the TV until she found the one she wanted, hesitating when she had it pulled halfway out and asking, "Is whatever you need to do going to take a long time?"

"I don't know how long it will take. Take your DVD. You can always finish watching it later if you have to. Put on your raincoat and head on over. Roberta's waiting for you. If you're lucky, she might even have cookies." It was a safe bet that she would. Roberta spent a lot of time baking, especially when it was raining.

After Mary scampered out, closing the back door with a bang to keep Chili from escaping again on her way, Frank sat down on the couch and tried to think of what to say to his mother. They hadn't spoken in the nine months since Mary had come home. He hadn't expected he'd ever speak to her again. Hadn't wanted to ever speak to her again. No, he hadn't wanted to want to ever speak to her again.

It hadn't occurred to him that he'd need to. It should have occurred to him. She was sixty-eight. Walter had turned seventy-one in May.

She must have been calling from the hospital's phone. She'd had the same number for twenty years and he couldn't see her changing it in the months since she'd gone back home. He picked up his phone and steeled himself to return her call.

~

After a stilted greeting, what he ended up saying to her was, "Do you want me to come up for the funeral?"

Silence on the other side of the line, then a forced, watery laugh. "For what? Appearances?"

"In case you need someone there." Family there. In case she needed family there.

"No," she said, sounding tired. After a moment, she added, "I've made the arrangements for the Saturday after next." Mary's birthday. "There's no need for you and Mary to change whatever plans you have."

"I'm sorry, Evelyn, I really am."

"I know, darling."

The endearment, one he couldn't remember the last time he'd heard from her directed at him, brought with it a vague and distant ache. "I need to go. I promised Mary we could go to the bookstore if she didn't find what she wanted at the library this morning. Just…call me if you change your mind, if you need me to come to Boston."

He could picture the tight nod that he had no doubt accompanied her words as she said, "Thank you, Frank." After a short pause, she added, "Tell Mary I've been working very hard on her mother's problem. Wish her a happy birthday from her grandmother."

She hung up then. Frank put down his phone and exhaled.

He waited to call Roberta for almost an hour after talking to Evelyn. "Go ahead and send Mary home," he told her.

"You sure? There's still twenty or so minutes left to go on her movie."

"Then send her back when it's done, if you're okay with that."

"Of course I'm okay with that," she said. "I'd keep her all night if you hadn't told her you'd take her to the bookstore."

While he waited for Mary to come home, he did the morning's dishes and then swept the kitchen floor. He took her birthday presents down from the shelf in the bedroom closet and wrapped them: Benacerraf's collection of essays on the philosophy of mathematics and a pink pillow in the shape of a smiling cat.

He put them back on the shelf and went back to the couch, still feeling slightly hollow. Mary came through the back door a few minutes later and he forced a smile. "Ready to go to the bookstore?" he asked.

She set her DVD back on the haphazard pile and grinned. "Duh."

~

At the bookstore, while Mary looked for a copy of _Warriors: Rising Storm_ , Frank looked at the small selection of sympathy cards. None of them seemed appropriate; he grabbed a birthday card for Mary instead and a history book off the clearance shelves for himself before heading back to the children's section.

Mary had the book in her lap, open, and two small stuffed cats next to her. "Did you find your book?" he asked.

"Yep. Frank?" She blinked up at him, eyes wide. "I know you said five more dollars to my budget, but can I have next month's early? Please?"

"Let me guess: you can't choose between the cats?"

"One looks like Fred and one looks like Chili," she explained.

"Guess I'm lucky you didn't find one that looked like Loui as well. How much of an advance?"

"Eight dollars and forty-three cents. Including tax."

He bit back a smile. "Fine. But that leaves you with a dollar and fifty-seven cents for August."

She shrugged. "I know."

Frank put the history book back on the shelf on their way to the check stand. He still needed to find a card for Evelyn. Not that a card was any comfort, not that they'd ever helped. The ones for Diane had gone unread into storage with the bulk of the contents of her apartment. They were still there, crammed with everything else into the cheap 10' x 10' storage unit he could barely afford but paid for religiously every month nevertheless. 

~

They'd been home for a while when Mary looked up from her book. She was sprawled on her belly on the living room floor, where she'd been alternately reading and playing with the cats. "Frank?" she sounded hesitant.

"Hmm?"

"Is something wrong? This morning you said we'd go to the bookstore right after the library if it didn't have my book, but then you told me I was going to Roberta’s and you had to take care of something, but you didn't tell me what the something was and you didn't say anything when I told you on the way home that Fred wouldn't be a warrior cat, but Chili would. You just kind of grunted." She mimicked the sound.

Oh.

"Your grandmother's husband died this morning," he said. "My stepfather. She called to tell me while we were at the dock and I needed time to call her back. That's why you were over at Roberta's."

Mary frowned slightly and threw a ping pong ball at Fred. "Walter. I didn't meet him, but Evelyn said he'd like me when she showed me his picture. He's tall like you."

"He was. Taller than me, even." Tall and broad. Solid, had been his first impression. As unlike his father as could be, had been his second. For Evelyn, that must have been part of the appeal.

"Did my mom like him?"

Diane had been twelve when they'd first met him, thirteen when they'd moved into his house, fourteen when Walter and Evelyn got married, and Walter's focus had always been Evelyn. With them, he was distantly avuncular more than anything else. When she was sixteen, Diane had confessed to Frank that the best part about Walter's presence in their lives was that it gave her breathing room. Not a lot, not enough, but breathing room nevertheless. "Yes."

"Would she be sad that he's dead?"

"I can't say. Probably."

"Are you sad that he's dead?"

Walter's entry into their lives had coincided with Frank entry into boarding school. He'd been less a part of Frank's life than Diane’s, but he'd still been a part of it from going on fourteen to thirty. "I don't know. I think so."

Mary considered this, her mouth pursing like it did when she was working on an especially challenging problem. "What was he like?"

"Serious. And a little stuffy. Always wore a suit."

"He wore a suit to bed?"

"No, not to bed. He wore pyjamas to bed. Plaid ones." With his initials monogrammed on the breast pocket.

"Then he didn't always wear a suit." She gave him a tiny smile.

"I guess he didn’t."

"Will we have to go to his funeral?"

"No, but we will have to find a sympathy card. Oh, and I almost forgot: Evelyn says to wish you a happy birthday." He left off the bit about Diane's proof. Maybe later. Maybe never, depending.

"My birthday's not until next Saturday. She could have called then and wished me one herself."

"Next Saturday is the funeral. She'll be too busy to call."

 

~*~

 

Realistically, Frank thought for far from the first time, the apartment was too small to fit even Mary's tiny group of friends. Not that that meant they were having her birthday party anywhere else. It was worth it, though, seeing them all huddled together on and around the couch, passing the bowl of popcorn while they watched the first movie of the night.

Mary's first birthday party with friends and her first slumber party here or anywhere else. He'd already written both of them down in the notebook of milestones he'd started after Diane's death, tonight's party captured alongside Mary's first words and first steps. He'd been keeping track of them for Diane at first, maybe even still.

He gathered up the piles of eagerly-torn wrapping paper to take to the trash, then stepped into the kitchen to order the pizza. Walter's service would have wrapped up an hour ago. Evelyn was no doubt having a smaller gathering of their closer friends at the house afterwards. Probably smiling through gritted teeth and hating every minute of it.

In the morning, after the sleepover wrapped up, he'd call. He'd probably regret it; he'd regret not calling even more. Christ, it would be so much easier if he could just cut her out of his life again like he thought he had. Except, if he was brutally honest with himself, until last year, he hadn't ever been the one doing the cutting out.

~

The morning after the party, Frank sat on the side of his bed, facing the closed door, phone in hand. The bedroom as close as he could get to privacy in the apartment other than calling from the bathroom. It wasn't ideal, but the two stragglers from the sleepover weren't going home until just before dinner and he needed to get the call out of the way.

"Frank. Thank you for the card." Evelyn sounded drained. Exhausted.

"Mary helped me pick it out. How was the funeral?" he asked.

"Large. Tasteful. I got to hear how sorry everyone was and hear what a wonderful man my husband was for the better part of an afternoon."

"I'm sorry."

"Oh for goodness' sake, Frank," she said, voice sharp enough that he flinched. "Don't. You know better than that."

A second, "I'm sorry," slipped out before he could stop it. This had been a bad idea. He'd known it would be.

"At least it was better than your father's funeral. A stroke is easier for people to wrap their heads around than a suicide."

"I wouldn't know."

In the awkward space that followed, he could hear the shrill squeals of the children's laughter from the other side of the door, his own careful, shallow breathing. Evelyn's silence, stretching out until he thought she must have hung up.

"No," she finally said, sounding infinitely wearier than before. "I suppose you wouldn't, would you? That was uncalled for of me, I apologize. I haven't slept more than four hours a night in the last week and a half; everyone seems to think being helpful is making sure poor widowed Evelyn isn't left alone with her thoughts for even a minute and I want to scream. At least with you, I can be somewhat honest."

Trying as best he could to keep his response from sounding sarcastic, Frank replied, "In that case, I guess I'm glad I can be of help." The sound of something crashing came from the other room. Just in time. "I should go. Mary has friends over and I need to make sure they don't destroy the house while I'm not looking."

"I'm surprised you'd be able to tell."

He closed his eyes. "The offer still stands, you know," he said, "if you need me to come up to Boston, just call."

Evelyn's reply was tinged with faint regret, which surprised him. "I don't believe that would go well for either of us. A little too much honesty for close quarters, don't you think? Goodbye, Frank."

Eyes still shut, he sat there, phone still pressed against his ear, the echo of their conversation loud, until another crash from the living room and Mary's voice shouting, "We'll clean it up!" brought him back to himself. He dropped the phone on the bed, pushed himself up, and went back to the living room.

"What did you knock over?"

Mary looked at him sheepishly. "Just some pens. And the DVDs. And my books. Nothing's broken."

"We were playing Jenga," Emma added.

"You know we have the actual game over on the shelf, right?" he said to Mary.

She grinned. "This way was more of a challenge."

~

"Leftover pizza, ugh." Mary poked at the slice on her plate with her fork. The last parent had finally picked up the last child and it was just the two of them again.

"Waste not, want not," he replied.

She made a face. "You always say that when I don't want leftovers."

"Because it's true. You can ask Roberta, she'll back me up. Eat your pizza."

"The crust gets gross when you microwave it."

"Would you rather eat it cold?"

"No."

"Well, there you have it. You can have leftover cake and ice cream when you're done. Did you have fun?"

"Loads." She grinned. "Can we do it again next weekend? It's the last one before school starts."

"Maybe. We'll talk about it when I've recovered from this one."

She wasn't wrong about the crust, which was both rubbery and soggy, but they'd had worse for dinner. Of course, she was pickier since she'd come back home, even though, despite Evelyn's gloomy predictions, she hadn't acquired a taste for Olive Garden. At least it meant she was eating more vegetables, even if it had meant he'd finally been forced to learn to cook more than the basics. And as long as that was the only lasting effect—and after the first awful, uneven months home, it seemed to be—he could live with that.

~

Days with non-stop rain weren't Frank's favorite for working on boats, but he had already agreed to three separate jobs, all with a short turnaround time, so Monday had him in a bad mood from the time he stepped out into the downpour. Seven years here, and he still wasn't used to the lukewarm rain that left him feeling like he'd wandered into a shower by mistake. He left Mary with Roberta instead of bringing her along, which had the unfortunate consequence of leaving him alone with his thoughts.

Almost two weeks since Evelyn had called with the news about Walter. Two days since his funeral.

It was funny: he wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Walter. Well, Walter's boat, the one Walter hadn't set foot in since five years before he'd met Evelyn, the one he'd told Frank he could use once he turned eighteen, but Frank would have to get it running first. It had given him something to do during that second summer home from school and, it turned out, he had a knack for it. He'd even considered majoring in engineering as a result.

He hadn't. He hadn't wanted to explain it to Evelyn and, more importantly, he hadn't wanted to take the one non-academic thing he loved and risk destroying it.

In the end, he'd taken only the boat out twice, too intent on his studies to do much else or to want to do much else, as strange as it seemed to him now that he'd cared so much about graduating _summa cum laude_.

Not that Evelyn had noticed, too focused on Diane, too busy trying to keep up appearances and keep control as it became clear to anyone who was looking that Diane took after their father. Not that anyone had been looking, not closely enough. He was as guilty there as their mother was, maybe more so.

He set down the wrench and grabbed a screwdriver from his toolbox. He should have known. When she was eighteen, when she was twenty-seven: it didn't matter. He should have known.

~

It was dry on Tuesday, so Mary came with him to the marina. She sat in the back of the truck while he worked, reading her book, sometimes taking a break from that to talk to him about what was happening in whichever chapter she was reading. After lunch, she'd be going to Emma's house. He resigned himself to an afternoon alone.

The playdate stretched into dinner, Emma's mom apologetically saying she'd bring Mary back after, if that was okay by him, which it was. He ate the last slice of the pizza without bothering to heat it up.

"You've got mail," he told Mary when she came home, handing her the envelope. It was bright blue, the kind that went with birthday cards, neatly addressed to Mary Adler in a familiar hand. He'd been surprised to see it in amongst the store flyers and junk mail.

"I do? Cool!" She slid her finger under the seal and pulled out the card. "It's from Evelyn," she said, scrunching her nose in puzzlement. "It doesn't look like a card she would send. There's a check in it. It's got your name on it." Mary handed it to him. "Oh. And a math problem." She looked pleased. "A hard one."

Frank looked at the check. A hundred dollars. She could probably get the rest of the cat books with that. Mary was right about the card. Evelyn's usual style was formal and artistic on thick card stock, not a drugstore card with brightly-colored drawings of animals on the front. It was hard to tell if she was trying to strike a more grandmotherly tone or if the card had just been an afterthought. Or maybe her usual style of card just looked too much like a sympathy card.

"We'll add her to the list for thank you notes," he said. "Which you should be doing."

"Do I have to?"

"It's good manners," he replied. He could hear Evelyn's voice in his head, irritated and impatient. _Manners are important, Frank. You know that._ "But we can go deposit your birthday money at the ATM when you're done and you can pick out whatever it is Evelyn's getting you for your birthday."

~

It was midnight when his phone started ringing. Frank fumbled for it in the dark, wondering who the hell was calling him that late.

He shouldn't have wondered.

"It's after midnight."

"Yes, it is," Evelyn said, matter-of-factly.

"Why are you calling me?"

"I've decided to take you up on your offer to come to Boston."

That woke him all the way up. "You could have waited until morning to call."

"I didn't want to change my mind again. I assume you haven't changed yours?"

"When do you want me to come up?"

"I've booked a flight for this Friday evening. Round trip. You'll return on Sunday afternoon."

"Friday is three days from now."

"Yes, I'm aware. I can change the arrangements if need be. I thought, however, that you would want to get this over with as soon as you were able."

"What about Mary?" He sat up and turned on the light. "Evelyn, I'm not dragging her to Boston." Except he already knew that Roberta would agree to have her stay with her, if he asked, had apparently already thought that far ahead without even having agreed yet.

"If you're unwilling to bring her here, then I presume she'd stay where she always does. Assuming that nothing's changed with that arrangement."

Mary hadn't been willing to spend a night away from him for the better part of two months after she'd come home. Not even at Roberta's. "No, nothing's changed."

"Then it's settled. You'll need to send me your email address so I can have the agency send you your itinerary."

"It's the same one I've had for fifteen years. I'm sure you have it in your Rolodex. I'll call you tomorrow night," he said. "Once I've decided whether or not Friday will work. Goodnight, Evelyn." He hung up.

~

He asked Bonnie meet him for lunch the next day. "I might need to cancel our plans for Friday," he told her, leaning down and taking the bag of sandwiches from her so she could climb into the boat.

"You look tired."

"I am. Evelyn called me at midnight. I didn't get back to sleep until close to four."

Bonnie looked like she was about to say something, stopped short and blinked. "Wait, why have you been talking to Evelyn?"

"She's my mother."

"And you've said yourself—several times, I might add—that she's an objectively horrible person."

"Look, Bonnie, I don't expect you to understand—"

"Oh, I understand all right. I just don't approve."

"My stepfather died. Two weeks ago while you were in Miami."

She winced. "Oh."

"I'm sorry, I didn't want to call you while you were at your sister's. I should have told you before now."

"Yeah, you should have." She shook her head slightly as if to clear it. "I'm sorry. Were you...close?"

"No. Maybe. I don't know."

"Is that why you might need to cancel on me?"

"I told Evelyn to call me if she needed me to come up, and she did."

"Oh."

"She informed me that she purchased my ticket. For the day after tomorrow. I haven't agreed to go yet."

"But you're going to."

"The sooner I get it over with, the sooner things can get back to normal."

"And what if it doesn't?"

He sighed and admitted, "I don't know."

"But you'll call me when you get home?"

"I will. I promise."

~

"Frank, are you out of your mind?"

He handed Roberta a cup of coffee and poured one for himself. He hadn't expected her to take this well. "Can Mary stay over Saturday or can't she?"

"Of course she can. That doesn't answer my question."

"Maybe. Probably." He picked up his cup and took a sip, scalding his tongue. "Almost certainly, but I still need to go."

"Why?"

"Because I promised Evelyn I would. It's just two nights."

"Mm-hmm. And then what, Frank?"

"I don't know."

"Well, you'd better figure it out. And sooner rather than later."

~

Mary was the last person he needed to tell. He waited until after they'd had dinner to do so.

"Evelyn called and she needs me to go to Boston on Friday," he told her. "It's just for a couple of days. I'll be back Sunday afternoon."

"I don't want to you go," Mary said.

"Neither do I, but I promised your grandmother I would."

"But Frank—"

"No 'but Frank,' Mary."

"It's Friday. You have a date. I'm supposed to be at Roberta's."

"You'll still be at Roberta's. You even get an extra night. Maybe you can convince Roberta to watch wrestling with you."

"I guess that would be okay. But you said you're not back until Sunday afternoon. That means I have to go to church."

"It'll broaden your horizons."

"Church is boring. Except for the hymns," she allowed. "Some of those are cool. Are you sure you have to go? If she wants to see you, why can't she just come here?"

"I really have to go, and you'd have to ask her. I'm sure she could if she wanted to."

"I don't think I want her to," Mary said. "She never told you she was sorry. And she had them take Fred away."

 

~*~

 

It was closing in on one in the morning when the car dropped him at Evelyn's, several hours after he'd been supposed to arrive. Frank retrieved his bag from the trunk and paid the driver. The porch light was on, but the rest of the house was dark. He'd left Evelyn a message about the delay before boarding in Tampa, but hadn't heard back. Nor had she pick up when he'd called from the car. At least he had a key, assuming Evelyn hadn't changed the locks in the last decade. If she had, at least it was a warm enough night that he wouldn't freeze to death on her lawn.

She hadn't changed the locks. The door opened quietly and he stepped inside. Down the hall, he could see light coming from under the door to the study. That would also be where the of the muffled strains of Bach were coming from, which meant that Evelyn was awake. Frank set his bag down on the floor and went to greet his mother.

"Come in," she said at his knock.

He opened the door to find her sitting in a leather armchair that must have been purchased since the last time he'd been there. She didn't look up when he entered the room. Not a hair out of place. Even in grief, her appearance was pristine.

She had a letter in her hand, a thick stack of them on the side table next to a half-empty snifter of brandy. The room itself was filled with boxes, neatly taped and stacked, the contents marked on the side in Evelyn's tidy handwriting.

"These were your father's," she said, folding the letter back up and sliding it into its envelope. "I found them in the attic. I'm selling the house, by the way."

"That explains the boxes."

"Some of the ones in the attic are yours, from when you were in England. Would you like a cup of coffee? Or a brandy?"

He shook his head. "I'm going to bed."

She raised her eyebrows. "So soon?"

"Do you have any idea what time it is?"

"I turned the chimes to silent on the clocks."

"There's a clock on your phone."

"My phone is upstairs."

"It's one in the morning. My flight was delayed. I called, but you didn't answer."

"I see." A thin, wry smile and then, "Your room's made up. I'll see you in the morning." She picked up another envelope and withdrew its letter, dismissing him.

~

Tired as he was, Frank still found himself staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep. He had expected Evelyn to have redone his old room in a fit of spite, but except for the books on the shelves, it was just as it had been when he was eighteen.

He wondered if the same was true of Diane's.

After half an hour of wondering, he gave up on sleep and went to find out.

Diane's room had always had more of her in it than Frank's did of him. For Frank, it had been a place he'd stayed when he wasn't at school. Diane had actually lived in hers. She'd chosen the furniture, the paint, the carpets, the art on the walls. Even the light fixtures.

He sat on the edge of her sleigh bed, on top of the rose pink comforter she'd picked out when they'd moved in. The one in her apartment, the one in the storage unit with all the rest of her things, had been an almost-identical shade of pink. Even after she'd moved out, this had been her room. She'd kept a lot of her books here. When she was pregnant with Mary, when Evelyn had washed her hands of them both, of all the things, it was the books Diane had left behind that she claimed hurt losing the most.

They were still here, still on the shelves in alphabetical order.

When he checked the dresser, her spare clothes were still in the drawers.

~

Once again, Frank didn't get to sleep until far too late. He woke up early, the now-foreign familiarity of the bedroom disorienting him for a minute as he came fully awake. Boston, he was in Boston. In his old room. Right. Fuck.

He rubbed his eyes and rolled over. The ceiling was no more interesting in the morning light than it had been the night before. Everything felt gritty, inside and out. He should shower. He should see if Evelyn was awake.

He shouldn't have come.

He checked the time. Too early to call Mary and Roberta. Or Bonnie. Or anyone.

The bathroom was different. He'd been too tired to notice the night before, but they'd replaced the ancient sink and toilet and retiled. It was painted now instead of covered in wallpaper. He showered, using the hotel bottles of shampoo and body wash he found in the shower caddy. Those were all Walter's doing. He never left a hotel room without taking the toiletries. Evelyn had hated it.

He dried off and got dressed. Brushed his teeth. Fussed with his hair that he still needed to get cut. He needed to go downstairs soon and face his mother, stop prolonging the inevitable, assuming she was awake.

The smell of coffee hit him as he reached the base of the stairs. No respite, not that he'd expected one.

Sitting at the kitchen table next to the window, hair brushed and styled, but no makeup on, her hands curled around a coffee mug, she looked fragile. He poured a cup of coffee of his own and sat down across from her.

"He was in Montana so often these last few years that I should be used to the quiet by now."

"But you're not."

"No," she said and sipped her coffee. "I'm not."

"Why am I here? And be honest."

"Very well. If we're speaking honestly with one another, I don't know." She set down her mug and looked him squarely in the eye. "Why did you offer to come home?"

Because, after everything that had happened, everything she'd done, she was still his mother. Because he'd have regretted not offering and he had enough regrets that he didn't want to deal with one more. Because he was a masochist. "I don't know."

"He was sitting where you are," she said. "Reading. I went upstairs to my office to work. I was supposed to meet with Seymour the next morning. I found him on the floor when I came in for a glass of water. The doctors said that even if I'd been there when it happened, it wouldn't have made a difference. Too much damage, you know."

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Stop saying that," she snapped. "You know full well it doesn't help."

Frank felt his temper rising in response. "What do you want me to say? That it wasn't your fault? That you couldn't have known? That time heals all wounds? Tell me which platitude you find acceptable, Mother. If none of those work, there are more we can choose from." He had heard all of them when Diane died and none of them had been true.

"Perhaps you shouldn't say anything."

"Perhaps not."

"I've been rewriting my will," she said after they'd been sitting in silence for some time. "I've designated you the executor. I'm also putting some of my assets into a trust for Mary."

"Did you plan on asking me, or did you just figure it was fine to present it to me _fait accompli_?" He designated Roberta as his executor. When the adoption process was final, he'd be designating her as Mary's legal guardian in the event of his death, too. He hoped the trust wouldn't complicate matters, though, obviously, not as much as he hoped it would never come to that.

"Would you have said no?"

He shrugged. "It's doubtful."

~

The rest of the morning followed the same pattern. Strained conversations, small bursts of temper quickly restrained on both sides, smaller bursts of remembered affection that never lasted long enough.

"Do you need help packing?" Frank asked her after they'd snapped at each other yet again.

"We might as well," she replied, a rueful smile on her face. "The movers will do the bulk of it, but I'd like to sort through Walter's things. He had so many suits."

"Brooks Brothers will miss his custom."

"As will his tailor. I've considered sending him a sympathy card."

He chuckled slightly. "That would be very kind of you, but he'd probably prefer money. Come on, let's go sort through his things."

~

"You weren't kidding about the number of suits," Frank said, setting another one on the bed on top of the previous one. They were all still in their dry cleaning bags. There was an empty bag at the back of the closet that must have contained the one he'd been buried in.

"You should see the cowboy hats. The last time I was at the ranch, I counted at least twenty. I'm sure he acquired more in the last year and a half."

"Is that how long it's been?"

"I only ever went there under duress. The silver lining, I suppose, is that I'll never need to go again."

"That must be a relief."

"You've no idea. Mind you, not as much as selling it will be." She closed the drawer she'd emptied of underwear and opened another. "I don't understand why it was he had so many pairs of socks. I don't suppose you want any? I'd offer you his suits, but with your current lifestyle, they're hardly something you'd need."

"And they wouldn't fit me. And no, I don't need socks. I have plenty of socks."

She put them into the box and closed the drawer. "No ties, either, I presume?" she said as she went on to the next.

"You presume correctly."

"Pity. You could use a good tie. The one you wore to court was ghastly. Oh, don't look at me like that. There's no use in either of us pretending it didn't happen."

Frank took the second-to-last suit out. The dress shirts were next, then his golf clothes. Finally, he replied, "There's also no use in us talking about it."

They worked in silence after that.

~

After lunch, Frank went up to the bedroom and called Roberta. "How's Mary?" he asked.

"How do you think she is?" She sighed. "Mary, baby," she called out, "do you want to talk to Frank?" To him, she added, "She can tell you herself."

"Hey Mary," he said when she took the phone from Roberta. "Are you having fun?"

"What do you think?" she replied, surly. "Why'd you have to go?"

"I told you why."

"I wanted to have a sleepover. You said I could."

"I said we'd talk about it."

"But school starts next week."

"I know. But there's always the weekend."

"Saturdays, yeah. You're always busy on Fridays." She paused before saying, "What if they can't come over?"

"I promise, someone will be able to come over."

"What if they won't want to if it's not my birthday?"

So that was what had her worried. "Trust me, they'll want to come over. You go over to their houses all the time." Not normally the other way around, not often, but not never, either.

"Not for sleepovers."

"That's because you've always said no." He'd been surprised when she'd asked for one for her birthday.

Her reply was a grudging, "I guess." She sighed, prolonged and dramatic. "Frank? You're still coming home tomorrow, promise?"

"I promise. Now put Roberta back on, then go tell Fred I miss him."

"What about Loui and Chili?"

He smiled. "Put Roberta back on and you can make something up."

"How are things going with Evelyn?" Roberta asked when Mary had given back the phone.

"As well as could be expected," he said.

"That bad, is it?"

"It's Evelyn." Not much else needed to be said. "I should go. I need to call Bonnie and then go back to packing my stepfather's things. I'll see you when I get home tomorrow."

He called Bonnie right after he'd hung up, hoping she'd be home or somewhere where she'd answer the phone.

"Hey you," she said when she picked up. "I thought you weren't getting home until tomorrow?"

"I'm not. I'm calling from Evelyn's while we take a break from fighting with each other. I needed to hear a friendly voice and Mary's still mad at me, which means she's got Roberta in her corner."

She gave him a sympathetic and drawn out, "Oh." Then added, "Is that all you've been doing? Fighting?"

"No, in between that, we've been packing up Walter's things. Sometimes during. And yes, before you say I told you so, it was a mistake to come here on short notice. I should have said no."

"For the record? I didn't say you shouldn't go."

"But you thought it."

"Oh yes. Very loudly."

"Sorry about last night. I'll make it up to you."

"It gave me time to work on my lesson plans and clean my apartment."

"Sounds like a fun Friday night."

"Oh, it was. Super, super fun. So much fun I'm still working on my lesson plans. How was yours?"

"My flight was delayed out of Tampa so I got to spend four hours of it in the airport."

"What time did you get to Evelyn's?"

"Not until one. She was awake when I got here, though technically, that was today."

"If it's before you go to sleep, it still counts as the same day. I have had some very, very long Fridays and Saturdays. How are you holding up? Other than wishing you hadn't gone."

"Believe it or not, I've had worse visits home."

"Oh, no, I believe it," Bonnie was quick to respond.

"I miss Mary. This will be the longest I've been away from her since she came home. And I miss you."

"That shouldn't make me happy, but it does," she confessed. "But just the part where you miss me. Not the rest of it. Do you want to talk about it?"

"Yes. No. When I get home. I should let you get back to your lesson plans. I'll talk to you tomorrow."

~

In the light of day, the previous night's impression of Diane's room as untouched proved to have been true. Not only were her clothes still in the drawers, but the closet remained full of her things, including some he'd wondered about when he'd packed up her apartment. Walter got the donation bin, Diane got a shrine.

He made his way back downstairs, to the study where Evelyn had retreated after lunch. She was packing, her hair tied back into a neat ponytail at the base of her neck, her back stiff and straight. She didn't acknowledge his entry, though he knew she'd heard him come in.

The collection of letters from the night before was nowhere to be seen, though the now-empty brandy snifter remained.

"Do you know where you'll be moving?" he asked and she looked up. Her eyes were puffy and a little bit red and her nose was shiny.

"Somewhere considerably smaller," she said. "Make yourself of use and pack the books on the far shelf."

Walter's books, for the most part. Biographies and glossy military histories, a few obviously recent purchases that were about cattle ranching. "Are they going out?"

"Those ones, yes." She exhaled. "I don't think he even read most of them. Gifts, you know. From clients and from friends."

"Did he ever read anything that wasn't the _Wall Street Journal_ or the sports section of the _Boston Globe_?"

" _The Daily Racing Form_ from time to time, I believe. And James Patterson, of course, though God knows why."

"Diane read him, too. She had all of his paperbacks in her apartment. I never understood it."

"That would have been Walter's doing, I'm afraid."

"Really?"

"He would give them to her when he was finished with them. Your sister claimed that she enjoyed them because she didn't have to think when she was reading them. That they helped her to clear her mind."

"She never told me." He hadn't even known she read anything that wasn't mathematics-related until after her death. The books hadn't been anywhere a visitor would see them; she'd kept them in her bedroom, two in the drawer of her nightstand, the rest in a box under the bed. All of them dogeared with cracked spines, one with a bookmark still in it.

"No, she wouldn't have. It wasn't as if she was proud of it. Why would she tell you? She only told me because she told me everything."

It felt strange, even having this conversation with Evelyn. It wasn't that he didn't talk about Diane. He talked about her all the time with Mary, but that was a carefully constructed version of her, the Diane who she'd been maybe half the time at best. The one who she'd wanted to be up to the end.

"Not everything," he said, unable to stop himself. "Or else Mary wouldn't have come as such a shock."

"Mary," she said, "was not a part of Diane's plan. She wasn't thinking and made an error in judgment with lasting consequences."

"No, Mary wasn't a part of your plan. Maybe Diane wasn't thinking it through, but she never thought it was a mistake. She'd always wanted that." Since she was little, playing with her dolls, giving them math lessons instead of throwing tea parties. "Which you would have known if you'd ever paid attention to what she wanted."

Evelyn gave him a look of cold disbelief. "And you did?"

"Yes, I did."

"How could you have?" Her voice grew louder, the words rapid and precise. Targeted. "You were never around, never bothering to offer your support to either of us. Do you think she didn't notice that you didn't visit after her time in hospital?"

"I was in New Jersey, without a car, working on my degree, and when I called, when I offered, she told me not to come."

"Stop making excuses," she snarled. "The first hint of trouble and you withdrew, just like you've always done. You're too much like your father in that regard and you always have been."

"Funny. Diane always claimed I was too much like you."

"Well, she was wrong. You're exactly like him." 

He could feel his jaw twitching. "I wish I was. I have tried so hard not to be like you. I was so scared that I would be that, unlike Diane, I never wanted children, never wanted a relationship that wasn't casual so that I wouldn't do to anyone what you did to us." Dimly, he realized he was shaking.

"And what did I do to you? Raise you? Keep you fed and clothed, even after your father hanged himself in the garage because his career was a disappointment and he didn't feel he should have to compromise his precious principals to support us? You should be grateful."

"For what? You marrying Walter?"

"How dare you? You have no idea, the sacrifices I made," she said in frigid tones, but her eyes were watery and her voice wobbled when she added, "Walter, however, was not one of them."

He wanted, very much, to be anywhere but this house, before either of them made things worse. "I should go. I think we both need some space right now."

"You're right," she said. She sounded drained.

"I hate to ask, but can I borrow your car?" There was somewhere else he needed to be, somewhere he should have gone to long before now.

"Take Walter's. The keys are hanging next to the door."

~

The storage unit was just half an hour outside of Boston proper, assuming light traffic. It took him forty-five minutes to get there, which wasn't bad. He parked Walter's Mercedes and sat there, hands on the steering wheel, willing himself to get out of the car.

If it was this bad just going to look, Frank had no idea how he was going to handle cleaning it out when the time came. If it came. He'd been waiting for the time to seem right for seven and a half years and it didn't seem like it was any closer now than it had been when he'd rented the unit in the first place.

Eventually, he made himself exit the car. He signed in at the front desk and made his way back down the concrete corridor, passing red steel door after red steel door until he found Diane's. He turned the dial on the padlock, 84-78-83, the combination still burned into his mind from years of using it at the gym, and slipped it off the latch. Now he just had to open the door.

They were just boxes, just things, he reminded himself, and opened it.

It was as he'd left it, packed high with boxes, the heaviest ones—books and dishes and tchotchkes—below and on top of her small kitchen table. The boxes of clothing and sheets, bed linens and towels were stacked on her loveseat. Her dresser, nightstand, and her bed frame and mattress were at the back, mostly hidden. The dresser drawers held all of her papers that weren't the proof, all her CDs and DVDs and small electronics, including her laptop. Bookshelves on the sides of the unit, holding whatever he could fit on them, the coffee table upside down, stacked chairs and the bedside table on top of it, the torchiere jammed awkwardly beside it.

He'd thrown out the perishables and most of the toiletries except a bottle of her perfume, taken Mary's clothes, the crib, and the rest of baby things as well as any bills or legal paperwork, but everything else from her apartment was in here.

Technically, it all belonged to Mary.

Without touching anything, without stepping in, he closed the door and put the padlock back on, spinning the dial into nonsense.

He called Evelyn from the parking lot. "I'm on my way back. Do you want me to pick up dinner?"

"I've put one of the ghastly casseroles in the oven to heat," she said, sounding uncharacteristically subdued.

"Is that a yes or a no?"

She laughed, hollow. "No."

~

"Where were you?" Evelyn asked. She was mostly ignoring the food on her plate in favor of a glass of red wine.

He hesitated before telling her, not wanting to re-wage their afternoon war. "At Diane's storage unit."

"I didn't know she had one."

"She didn't, but everything in it is hers, except for the sympathy cards. I rented it when I packed up her apartment, after."

"I see."

They ate in uncomfortable silence for a while. 

"You don't need me here," Frank said, finally. "You don't even really want me here."

"Don't I?"

"No, you don't."

"You," she said, her enunciation precise, "as always, have no idea what I need."

"Do you?"

"Yes. What I need is a weekend without one of our friends stopping by, trying to comfort me or making it about them. As I told you, at least with you I can be honest. And if I let it be known that my estranged son will be at home, well, you can imagine that would put a damper on their desire to do so."

That meant that, despite what she'd said that morning, she had known exactly why she'd asked him to come up. "I'm a human shield."

"If you want to put it like that, I suppose. More accurately, I didn't want to be alone and I didn't want any of the company I was likely to receive."

"So you summoned me up here on short notice, no thought as to how it would affect Mary," he said, evenly. "That's remarkably selfish, even for you."

"No, selfish would have been asking you to come home for the funeral. Mary is resilient. She can spare you for a handful of nights. If you weren't prepared for this, you shouldn't have offered to come in the first place."

"You're right, I shouldn't have. I don't know why I ever expect you to be different, Evelyn." He was so tired of trying.

"Nor do I."

"Was it worth it?"

"I'm not sure." She took a sip of her wine. "But I don't want you to think I'm ungrateful. Believe it or not, I am glad that you came."

He wasn't, but he supposed it was something that she was.

~

They reached a cautious détente after dinner.

"How is Mary?" Evelyn asked. She was sitting on the living room sofa, looking as close to relaxed as she ever did, which was to say not very.

"Enjoying the summer. She had a sleepover for her birthday. I'm still cleaning popcorn out of the cushions. I think they got more on couch and floor than they did in their mouths. She enjoyed the problem you sent her. I'm also still trying to get her to finish writing her thank you cards."

"And you?"

"Working. Raising Mary. I've been seeing someone."

"That little teacher of Mary's who came into the courtroom?"

"Her name's Bonnie, and yes."

"You're raising a child, you're in a relationship. I presume that means you're no longer afraid of turning into me." But she said it with the barest hint of a smile and no venom behind it. "I am happy for you, truly I am."

He wished he could believe her. "I've started tutoring. During the school year."

"You could always go back to teaching. I'm sure there's a second-rate university somewhere in Florida that would take you in an instant even now. That's not meant as an insult to your qualifications, by the way, but you must admit you ruined your chances of getting a tenured position at any decent institution when you left for Florida."

He shook his head. "No, that part of my life is far behind me."

"You could use the benefits, surely."

"Now that the custody issues are settled, I have insurance. Not having it in writing was the only reason I didn't before. I didn't even claim her as a dependent on my tax returns. And I'm adopting her. Legally. A relative adoption is easy enough to do in Florida once everything else is in order."

"What about retirement? Life insurance if anything happens?"

"I don't know. We'll cross that bridge if and when we come to it."

"She'll have the trust, I suppose. It was meant for her education, not that I think she'll have anything other than a full ride scholarship to anywhere she wishes to go, but I'll make sure there's enough in there for her to live on, should she need to."

"I'm not planning on dying, Evelyn."

"Neither was Walter. You have to be practical."

~

"Should I mail you your things from the attic, or do you want to take them with you?" Evelyn asked over breakfast. "It's only a few boxes, but I thought you might want them. We should have gone through them yesterday, I suppose. I'd suggest going through them now, but there wouldn't be time before you need to be at the airport."

"I'm not taking them with me. I'm taking a shuttle from the airport. There wouldn't be room."

"Then it's settled; I'll mail them. I'll send Diane's as well, for Mary. There are scrapbooks and photos I think she'd like to have."

"Thank you. She would."

She sighed and said, "I know it was hard on you, being here, and I know that it was largely my fault. I wish things could be different between us."

"I know," he said. "So do I."

~

Mary and Roberta were waiting outside when the shuttle dropped him off. Mary practically launched herself at him as soon as he was out of it, skinny arms wrapping tightly around his waist. He ruffled her hair.

"Did Fred miss me?" he asked.

"No. And Fred says it's his house now because you abandoned it, but you're allowed to stay there with us if you want just as long as you feed him."

"Is that so?"

"Yep. He's king of the house."

"Go tell His Majesty I'll be right there."

"Welcome home, Frank," Roberta said as Mary scampered off. "How did it go?"

"It was rough," he admitted. "It got a lot worse after I called. Then it got better. In the end, I don't regret going, but if you'd asked me yesterday, my answer would have been that it was in my top ten worst mistakes. How was Mary?"

"She crawled into my bed to sleep last night, that's how Mary was."

~

It was a relief to settle back into their daily routine after his trip to Boston. On Thursday, Frank drove Mary to school for the start of second grade. He went to work, picked her up at the end of the school day, and took her back with him to the marina while he finished up. Friday, Bonnie joined them for dinner, after which, Mary went over to Roberta's for the night.

"No math," he told Mary when she got home and started taking out her textbooks. "Not until later. We've got a break from the rain, let's go to the beach. You can look for shells. Go put on some sunscreen and get your hat."

"Can Fred come?"

"Fred can come."

They went to the truck, Mary with a bucket and shovel in one hand, Fred in her other arm. "Chili and Loui wanted to come, too," she said. "But they can't. They'd try to catch the sandpipers."

"Would they now?"

"Yep. They want to be better, but they can't help themselves."

"Unlike Fred."

~

He sat in the folding chair with Fred beside him and watched her play in the sand, making patterns with rocks and shells. Now that she had friends her own age, now that she had what he'd wanted for her, they didn't get to do this as often as they had before. Eventually, she abandoned the sand in favor of his lap.

"Frank?" she said. "Will you have to go back to Boston?"

"No, not for a very long while."

"Will I have to go back to Boston?"

"Not if you don't want to."

"I couldn't bring Fred. He'd be lonely without me. He has the other cats, but it's not the same."

"You never have to go anywhere you don't want to go again, remember?"

"Promise?"

"I promise."

"Does that mean I don't have to go to the dentist?"

"No, you still have to go to the dentist. And the pediatrician."

She wrinkled her nose and leaned back against his chest. "They treat me like a little kid."

"That's because you are a little kid."

"But they don't have to talk down to me."

"You'll have to tell them that."

"They won't want to hear it."

"Then that's their fault."

 

~*~

 

In early October, almost a year after she'd left, Evelyn decided to come back to Florida. The first Frank knew of it was another message on his voicemail, informing him of the fact, the first contact she'd made since Boston.

"You know I only have one bedroom and three cats, right?" he said when he returned the call.

"Three cats? Why in god's name do you have three now?"

"Because you gave away one of them a year ago and I had to rescue him from death row. I couldn't leave his cellmates behind."

"The number of cats in your house is unimportant. I've rented a small house. Short term, while the house in Boston goes on the market. I get in Friday afternoon."

"Do you need me to meet you at the airport?"

"In that bucket of rust and bolts you call transportation? Don't be ridiculous. I've rented a car."

"Oh."

"What I would like is to have you and Mary over for dinner Friday evening."

"You know that I already have plans, right?"

"Surely, you can postpone them. Oh, and I'm bringing your things—and Diane's—with me. We can sort through them in person."

"Only if Mary agrees to come."

"Very well."

~

"I could have told you this wasn't over," Roberta said. She shook her head slowly. "I hope you know what you're doing."

~

"If you don't want to, you don't have to," he told Mary. "I know you said you didn't want her down here."

She frowned. "I know, but I'd kind of like to go. I think. I do like her, or I did, even if I never want to live with her. And she is my grandmother. Unless you really don't want to."

"No, we can go," he said.

~

The house Evelyn was staying in was minuscule by her standards, huge by his and Mary's, and nothing like anything any of them would have chosen if they'd had the luxury of choice. Evelyn met them at the door. She was dressed, as usual, in tasteful neutrals. She looked almost the same as she had when he'd last seen her, except for an unfamiliar tension around her mouth and an uncertainty in her eyes.

"Mary. Frank."

"Evelyn. Interesting choice of accommodations."

"It was the only thing I could find on short notice with an immediate, extended availability. Do come in. I thought we could go through the things I brought with me before we have dinner. I don't know if Frank told you, Mary, but some of them were your mother's. I know you'll want to see those."

They followed her down the tiled entry to the sunken living room. The homeowners had redone the carpeting in there recently enough that the whole house smelled of it, harsh and chemical. The color, somewhere between ivory and beige, was almost an exact match for Evelyn's blouse.

~

"These two boxes are for Mary," his mother said, pointing to the ones next to the rattan sofa. "The three nearest to the window are yours."

He took out his pocketknife and sliced through the packing tape of the box closest to him. He'd labeled it assorted, no other indication of what was inside.

There was a CD on top. Tom Waits, _Frank's Wild Years_ , a gift from Diane. "To remember your time at Princeton," she'd told him solemnly. He'd thrown the balled-up wrapping paper at her, said, "Very funny," with a roll of his eyes and she'd dissolved into a rare fit of helpless laughter. The plastic of the case was cracked and one of the hinges on the lid was broken. He'd listened to it maybe once the whole time he'd owned it, but Diane had just been so pleased with herself, he'd never been able to throw it out. Of course, they hadn't been wild, no matter what Evelyn might have thought, no matter what Diane had definitely thought. Only, maybe, if you compared them to Diane's. Below that were dozens of notebooks.

"What's in there?" Mary asked, peering over his shoulder.

"My life's work," he said. "Or so I thought at the time."

"His journals, darling," Evelyn added. "From when he was at university."

"Nothing exciting."

"Frank's been teaching me philosophy," Mary said, speaking directly to Evelyn for the first time.

"Has he now? And how have you been enjoying that?"

"It's okay." She shrugged. "It's not math, but it's interesting. I can see why he likes it, even if some of it does seem kind of obvious."

Evelyn smiled. "Yes it does, doesn't?" she said in a conspiratorial voice.

On the bottom of the first box were two letters from Diane, sent a year apart. His stomach lurched. One from when she had fallen in love for the first time, a long, rambling letter filled with exclamation points and a teen girl's enthusiasm, the other from after her hospital stay, shorter, bitter and accusatory, with just as many exclamation points. She'd been so angry. With Evelyn. With the boy who broke her heart. With him. With herself. He left them there, resolving to burn them when he could. Mary didn't need to see that part of her mother. He didn't need the reminder.

"Mary," Evelyn was saying, "I brought along my photo albums, including some you haven't seen yet."

"Cool! Can we look at them now?"

"Of course."

~

"Whoa. Is that Frank?" They were at the dining table, photo albums spread across the surface.

"Yes," said Evelyn. "That's your uncle as a baby. That picture was taken just before we left for America. At my parents' house."

Mary turned to him. "You were born in England?"

"Yes, I was."

"You never told me," she said, a little accusatorially.

"We left before I was six months old."

"He went back when he was twenty-two. To do graduate work," Evelyn told her.

"Yeah. He told me that. I've never seen pictures of Frank as a baby. He said he didn't have any."

"That's because I don't," he said. "Your grandmother had them all."

"You're welcome to take some of them home with you," Evelyn said to Mary. "And I put together an album for you with copies of all the photographs I have of your mother. You can put the ones of Frank in it as well."

~

"How was Evelyn's?" Bonnie asked that night after Mary had gone to Roberta's.

"Better than expected and with nary a quarrel. I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop." He took a sip of his beer. "Mary had fun. And she got to see my baby pictures."

"Can I see your baby pictures? Are they embarrassing ones?"

"Does Evelyn seem like the kind of person who would take embarrassing pictures of her children? That would have been beneath her. No, as close as they get to embarrassing is the photograph of me screaming in my christening gown."

"Do you know why she's here? Why she decided to come to Florida?"

"She didn't say."

~

Even when pressed, Evelyn wouldn't, or maybe couldn't, give him a straight answer as to her motivations.

"I thought at great lengths about what we said to each other when you came up," she said at one point. They were at lunch while Mary was out with a friend.

"We said a lot of things, Mother. What, in particular, are you talking about?"

"About wishing things were different between us. We were in agreement on that much, as I recall."

He raised his eyebrows and leaned back in his chair. "And you thought an impulse stay in Florida would make that happen?"

"I thought perhaps it could be a start." She set down her knife and fork. "I am trying, you know, to mend the breach. Walter encouraged me to do so many times over the years. I was too stubborn to listen, I suppose."

With a small sigh, he said, "I know you're trying. I appreciate it, I do."

~

Things seemed to be going well until one day, a week before Thanksgiving break, they suddenly weren't. To his surprise, when it happened, it wasn't anything Evelyn had said or done.

"Can I go to Roberta's early?" Mary asked, dropping her backpack on the floor.

Frank didn't look up from his book. "We're going out to dinner with Evelyn first." 

Mary was quiet for a while then said, in a small voice, "When is Evelyn going home?"

He looked up, concerned. "I don't know. She hasn't said. I thought you were enjoying spending time with her." She'd been spending a lot of time with her, especially in the last two weeks. She'd even spent the night at Evelyn's the Saturday before.

Mary had her arms crossed in front of her. To his surprise, she was on the verge of tears. "I don't want them to take me away again."

He got up and knelt down in front of her, put his hands on her shoulders. "Hey, you're not going anywhere."

"You said that before!"

"Mary, this is different." It was his fault for not making it clear to Mary that her custody situation wasn't going to change, he thought. "I told you, no one's going to take you away. Not Evelyn, not anyone. I'm still your legal guardian and once the final paperwork's through, that changes to adoption. You know that."

"But it's not through yet. She could still change things."

"Has she said she wants to?" If she had…

Mary shook her head. "No."

Thank god. "Do you want me to call Evelyn and cancel? Tell her you're not feeling well?"

She nodded.

"Do you want to stay with me tonight instead of going to Roberta's?"

Mary bit her lip. "You're supposed to have Bonnie over."

"Bonnie will understand."

~

"You should brush her hair."

Mary dropped off the monkey bars, waving to them before running over to her small cluster of friends. "I do brush her hair," Frank replied.

"Not well enough."

"It's Mary's hair, not my hair. And she has a sensitive scalp. We stop when she says we stop."

"You always hated having your hair brushed. You and Diane both." After a pause, she said, "So did I, when I was young. I'd run and hide in a cupboard in an effort to avoid it."

He laughed, startled. "Really?"

"Your grandmother never believed me when I told her it hurt. She thought I was making it up." His mother gave him a rueful, sympathetic smile.

Frank returned the smile and said, "Sensitive scalps, a family curse."

The worst conversations with Evelyn were always the ones like these, the ones that felt normal, familial. It was almost easier when they were fighting. He wanted to believe that maybe this time, things would be different, and they had been, so far. He just wasn't sure how long that would last or how he'd handle it if or when they went back to what had passed as normal between them for so much of his life.

He looked over at Mary, waiting for her turn on the spiral slide, grinning and laughing with the Isabella who collected seashells while the Isabella who loved cats clambered up the slide's ladder.

Mary, who had spent the night before unable to sleep until she crawled into his bed, scared of the future and unwilling to believe his reassurances.

"She thinks you'll try to get custody again."

Evelyn looked at him, startled. "That's been settled. You have full, legal custody of the child. You're adopting her."

"I know, and believe me, I've told her that over and over but she's eight and she had her world turned upside down a year ago."

"You mean I turned her world upside down. Is that why you canceled on me last night?"

"She had a meltdown. You need to tell her yourself."

"I see."

Mary ran over to them then, breathless and grinning. "Can I go to Isabella's?"

"Which one and yes, if it's okay with her parents."

"Gonzalez." Cat Isabella, then. "Isabella Tran's coming, too."

She ran off again. Evelyn watched her go, gave a resigned sigh when Mary was far enough away that she wouldn't be able to hear them.

"Contrary to what you might think, I don't wish to ruin her life, nor do I wish to turn it upside down. I merely wish to be a part of it."

~

Whatever Evelyn said to Mary must have been convincing, because Mary stopped worrying about being taken from him after having a private dinner with her grandmother.

"She means well," Mary told him. "But I don't think she knows what it's like to be a child."

From what little he remembered of his maternal grandparents, he suspected she never had.

~

The house in Boston had sold, but Evelyn remained. There were things, she said, that still needed to be sorted out.

"So you'll be having Thanksgiving with us, then?"

"Not if I want to be able to breathe. Cats, remember? Besides, I'm English. It isn't my holiday."

"You've been here for almost four decades," he pointed out. "And you've celebrated Thanksgiving every year during that time."

"I have my computer, I have things I need to work on, things pertaining to your sister's work. I don't need to spend my day eating dry poultry and making small talk with your neighbor and your paramour."

"Bonnie will be at her sister's. Roberta will be at hers, as well. It's just me and Mary, but suit yourself."

~

The call from Shanklin came as Frank was getting ready to pick Bonnie up from the airport the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Mary was with Evelyn, where she was once again spending the night.

"Hello?"

"Is this Frank Adler?"

"It is."

"This is Seymour Shanklin. Has Evelyn been in touch with you?"

Pieces started to fit into place in his head, not all of them, but enough. "I'm on my way to the airport," he said. "Can I call you back?"

~

He waited until Monday, when Mary was back in school, to confront Evelyn about it. "Now that the house has sold, when are you going back to Boston?" They were at her house, sitting in the living room.

"I haven't decided if I'm going to," she said. "I've been thinking about moving here."

"You hate Florida."

"Yes." Evelyn stirred her coffee. In the early afternoon sunlight, he could see clearly the age spots on her hands, the way the veins stood out now below the thinning skin, the slight swelling of her knuckles, all of them betraying her age.

"You called it a god-forsaken mosquito ranch."

"Yes, I did."

"Then why would you even consider moving here?"

"Because the only family I have left is here."

"Evelyn…"

"I would be close to Mary, I could help her with her studies, look after her when you're at work."

"Evelyn, no. Mary doesn't need that. I don't need that. And neither do you. Shanklin called me Saturday afternoon. He said you haven't been answering your phone. That you haven't talked to him since September."

"I lost my husband. Of course I haven't been answering my phone."

"You and I both know that's not the reason. What's going on, Evelyn? Why are you still here, not up at MIT, throwing yourself into defending Diane's proof?"

She swallowed, looking defensive. Looking like one wrong word from him and she'd fall apart. "I don't know what you mean."

"Yes, you do."

"Very well. I'm afraid of letting her down, more than I already have. I am old and I'm terrified that I cannot successfully finish her work. Is that what you wanted to hear? Does that make you happy?"

"Of course it doesn't. I just want you to tell me the truth."

"After Walter died, I tried. Of course, Seymour was calling me almost daily, even before the funeral, asking me when I would be ready to get back to work. Every time I sat down, I couldn't bring myself to look at her writing. It was hard enough before Walter died. Afterwards, it was impossible. I think I thought that perhaps having you home would help, only all it did was remind me that I failed you both. Don't look surprised. You think I don't know? I'm not stupid."

"I never said you were."

"You were eight when your father died and oh, you were angry. I couldn't hide what had happened from you, not like I could from Diane. You fought and you raged and then you shut down. Diane was easier. We understood one another, or so I thought. I thought it until last year."

"When you found out she'd finished the proof," he said, quietly.

She nodded, swallowed again, her whole body shuddering slightly. "I can't undo any of it. I can't bring her back. Do you know what the worst part is? It's knowing that she wouldn't have wanted my help."

"She'd have wanted her work to be public. You can give her that. Stop running from it. Call Shanklin. Let him know you when you'll be home. You don't want to be here, not full time. You and I both know that. Eventually, we'd just end up fighting and Mary would be caught in the middle. It wouldn't be fair to any of us."

"I suppose you're right."

He reached out to cover her hand with his own. He couldn't remember how long it had been since he'd done anything like that with her, nor how long it had been since he'd wanted to. "You can still come back and visit, whenever you want. I'm not saying you can't be a part of our lives. Just not like this."

"Christmas," she said, with a watery smile, "is only a month from now." Then she straightened, pulling herself together. "Well," she said. "I should make some calls. My real estate agent keeps sending me links to listings of condominiums."

~

Evelyn emailed him her itinerary before he even got back to his apartment. She also sent him a message informing him that she'd made dinner reservations for the night before she was flying home.

"Is she really going?" Mary asked.

"She's really going. Her flight's Thursday night. But she'll come back to visit." The relief he felt was tinted with an unfamiliar sadness. He'd miss her, he realized. He hadn't thought that would be possible. It felt something like a miracle. The breach wasn't mended, it might never be, but there was a bridge there now. "Get Fred. We're going to the beach. Tell Roberta to come join us."

~

He drove her to the airport, Mary between them on the bench seat. They talked about mathematics, Evelyn told stories about Diane as a child. Frank just listened.

Evelyn hadn't been demonstrative with her affections when they were growing up, but her smile when Mary hugged her goodbye was unforced.

"You've softened," he said, handing Evelyn her bag.

"Nonsense." But she smiled. "Thank you, Frank."

"Go, catch your plane. Go home." He touched her hand. "We'll see you at Christmas."


End file.
